Adoping, then conceiving a birth child.

[EmotionalFlamingo]

My husband and I have adopted gorgeous siblings who we totally adore. We chose adoption as the route to complete our family after years of trying to conceive naturally. I have PCOS (confirmed by scans, blood tests, etc.) and we were told our only chance of ever having biological children would be IVF as I don't ovulate.

Anyway, fast forward, became approved adopters, got matched, siblings settling in beautifully (of course there are difficulties, but overall all things considered, they are amazing little humans who have settled wonderfully). And I think I may be pregnant (positive pregnancy tests, waiting to be confirmed through bloodwork).

Has anyone adopted and had a birth child after? I have met others through adoption groups that have had birth children then adopted. But not the other way around.

The AO is due January, I thought.

Sorry, I missed the update. Congratulations!

Thank you to those that offered their congratulations. We are excited, it's just such big news to take in.

@Jellycatspyjamas thank you so much for your detailed responses and kind words. They really are appreciated.

@theboardgame it is certainly not as early as we thought. We were thinking maybe around 12 weeks, maybe 15/16 at a push. It is definitely far further along than we ever could have anticipated. But I am also not showing. Genuinely, neither me or my husband have noticed any sign of a baby bump.

I'm naturally curvy, the PCOS masks all other symptoms... odd pelvic pains, irregular periods (that show up anywhere between about 6 weeks to a year after the previous one unless medically induced and haven't had any medically induced for about 3 years), heartburn, issues from time to time with constipation, blood tests that prove no ovulation, etc. are all normal for me...

@EmotionalFlamingo If you are due in January, there is no way you could hide it before finishing the adoption process. The baby is going to grow quickly now. There is another issue that you might not realise and you need to take it into consideration. The new baby is an incredible stress for the parents, bringing new adopted children into that environment can be counterproductive. Congratulations on your pregnancy.

Congratulations on your pregnancy and adoption.
But wow what a shock!
Tbh - andI'm aware you are had differing advice on here - I have always found it best to be open and honest with SS. My eldest was in my care by SGO for a long while, when I fell pregnant SS were initially not amused. However they were also helpful, supportive and ultimately it made no difference to anything.

I had my two birth children in between adopting. From a relationship point of view, I made sure to often refer to my ds1 as my dd's brother rather than my son if that makes sense....give her a sense of belonging and relationship.
She adores her siblings. I'd be happy to try to answer any other questions about my experience if it might help.

This is very common and happened in several families I know. I think it was hard due to the little age gap but made the family mesh together in a totally different way.

once an adoption order goes into the courts the children cannot be moved so dont worry about that . The process has to be concluded and the judges decision made before the kids could be moved but only if the adoption order was not granted for some reason . So you can tell the sw without fear of them sweeping in to disrupt the placement at least that used to be the legal position .
Congratulations on your exciting news x

Wow congratulations, amazing how these things work out though, you will be fine. SS will offer you support, and would definitely not remove your children. Hope you can start to relax and enjoy, once you have told everyone, very best wishes

This happened to me. We had already had our adoption order come through.
We were trying to get support from social services and they blamed all of ds' behaviour on me being pregnant, us having a baby. Actually he'd got fasd.
Definitely tell midwife. I was in hospital four days before I had dd. They were all SO lovely to ds and on several occasions mentioned how this was our second child.
However do be prepared for the "are you going to send them back now", "it's nice to have a real child" rubbish.
Here if you need a chat. Please feel free to pm me.

Thank you to absolutely everyone who has replied on this post. It really is appreciated.

It's certainly been a whirlwind of a week and a half!

Due date is early Jan - I officially enter the third trimester tomorrow! I ended up having to spend a couple of unexpected, but precautionary (not emergency) nights in hospital. After being monitored, etc. baby is doing well, growing nicely, currently not a worry in that sense.

We have told all close family and friends - basically our support network. All are incredibly supportive. One of my best friends was especially shocked at the dates as we swim together regularly and as she put it... 'I saw you in a swimming costume a few days ago, how the hell are you 6 months pregnant!'

We have also spoken to our social worker, who was shocked, but incredibly supportive. I think the fact that we were so open during the whole adoption process has gone in our favour in the sense she genuinely believes we didn't know about the pregnancy at all and that it's not something we were trying to hide - which is totally true - it was definitely a shock finding out! But I was scared that she would think we had purposely held back on sharing information. Our social worker has contacted our siblings social worker and then fed back that she is also incredibly supportive and it should not affect the adoption order going through. Haven't spoken to siblings social worker directly as of yet, but she is going to call us for a chat, but as we got feedback from ours that she is supportive I'm now not worried about that call. We coincidentally have a call booked in tomorrow with the play therapist (who we have for our eldest) so will be a good opportunity to discuss how to introduce the idea to our siblings - we fully intend to do this in a playful, fun way to make things exciting for them rather than a worry.

This is never the way we thought we'd end up with a third child, but we are so so grateful to have a fantastic support network, including our fab social worker, and it has taken a great weight off my mind now that all the important adults know.

For anyone who has followed this post and managed to get to the bottom of this essay - thank you!

Oh great update.
Exciting times ahead for you all. How wonderful. X

Fab update I can feel the happiness in your post congratulations to you all

Thank you @flapjackfairy and @mintyt

I think the idea that all the important adults know in sense of support networks and social workers has taken a great worry off my mind.

I'm actually a little disappointed that I managed to get almost all the way to the third trimester without knowing - after believing I could never get pregnant I would have loved to 'enjoy' this one. Saying that the fact I appear to have got through 6 months easily in a pregnancy sense is something I am also grateful for!

Now I need to figure out the legalities of running adoption leave and mat leave together. Im pretty sure I need to give notice to stop my adoption leave early to then run mat leave from when baby arrives... but I'm not sure. I've contacted my boss telling them I need to update them but haven't actually told them the update yet as it felt wrong to do that over e-mail! Think I may contact the HR dept separately though to seek out info..

Really re the mat and adoption leave it couldn't be better timed, your children have given you another child and that's a blessing.

When I said you wouldn't be sure of the situation or what would happen i was thinking 6 weeks not 6 months! Congratulations

A pp has said the challenges will be different from a family where existing dc are bio, but I think the greatest most frequent challenges which is extreme exhaustion/lack of sleep and having to deal with many conflicting needs (of other dc plus the adults around!) are common to both.

I would be quite interested to know what SWs can provide in the way of support. I am guessing they mean staying in touch and checking in. I am not sure how much help they could give in relation to lack of sleep and conflicting needs. But I might be wrong there. The people I found most helpful were those with seasoned experience who could answer my stupid "is this normal?" questions by text, I was lucky to have those in the UK but also one who was the other side of the world so I had 24 hour coverage.

You may find bonding with the bio child different/easier and if so it doesn't matter, as long as the adc still get the connection they need and needs met, in my opinion. And you have 3 months to continue getting to know them which imo is the best way to know how to connect and meet their needs. This is just my opinion though.

Make sure your dh reads the baby books with you so that he is competent to help with the practicalities of a wee baby or be aware of them sufficiently to help you balance with what you need to do with the other dc, and together you can plan out how it will all work swimmingly

that should be "I think the greatest most frequent challenges are extreme exhaustion/lack of sleep and having to deal with many conflicting needs (of other dc plus the adults around!) and these are common to both"